In this week’s class on January 13th, we discussed “low-risk” soft starts. I got some nice ideas for laid-back activities to start the school days, such as colouring, stacking card towers, or doing puzzles. My (adult) classmates and I enjoyed these activities so much that when it was time to get back to the real work, we requested a few more minutes of puzzle time and agreed to come back and finish it later. This reminded me of my math course last semester, where our instructor suggested puzzles such as tangrams and sudoku for soft starts, and as a mental “warm up”.
The key idea of our soft start exploration this week is that to be low risk, an activity must not require skills that students do not yet possess, or push them out of their comfort zone. This made me think about how subjective of a term “low-risk” is, as I considered my own experience in elementary school. I always felt that art was a low-risk activity as a child, because I did not experience criticism for it and I truly enjoyed it. Many students at that age felt similarly about the chance to freely toss a basketball back and forth- something we would do during physical education occasionally, determined to be a “fun and laid back” activity by my teacher. But free play with basketballs did not feel fun and laid back to me, because I didn’t engage with sports outside of class and felt unsure of how to participate. Funny enough, this isn’t the first time I’ve written about how nervous basketball makes me in a course reflection… you’d think I have some sort of “basketball-induced trauma”, but I think that sensitivity was just the social risk I felt as a child (and yes, I am still a bit sensitive).
Anyways, I am now questioning what is truly a low risk-activity: does it simply feel low risk to me as the teacher, or is it actually without social or emotional consequences for students? And further than that, given how unique each student is, is it even possible to design a purely risk-free activity? Probably not, which reminds me of the relevance of this UVic Teacher Competency: “demonstrate an understanding of the complexity of teaching and learning”. We can have all the knowledge in the world of our students and the ideal learning scenarios to provide for them, but due to conflicting needs and restraints, we can not always implement what we know would be ideal. However, if I choose a diverse enough selection of soft starts so that each student- even if not simultaneously- has the chance to engage without risk once in a while, I think that will be just fine. I also wonder if what each student feels is “risky” is conditioned, the way it seemed with my younger self and basketball. Art feels risky to some students because, as my classmate once pointed out to me, many teachers (and as I have noticed, some students) are attached to the idea that there is a right and wrong way to create art, and will intervene with “helpful advice” when students are making art that does not look like what the teacher is envisioning. I wonder how I can help condition my future class to not feel unnecessary risk when participating in soft start activities that are meant to be fun? Going forward, I will try choose low risk soft-start activities, while considering that sometimes experiences with teachers and peers have as much effect on what feels risky to a student as the activity itself does.
Graham,
Your words, ‘I will try choose low risk soft-start activities, while considering that sometimes experiences with teachers and peers have as much effect on what feels risky to a student as the activity itself does.’ certainly puts things into perspective. The key to having an open heart/mind/spirit classroom is certainly a starting point! Funnily enough, the more you build rapport with your learners the more you open the doors to your learners taking more risks, go figure!
Cheers,
J